My name is Sybil Derrible (he/him), I am an Associate Professor of Urban Engineering in the Department of Civil, Materials, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) and the Director of the Complex and Sustainable Urban Networks (CSUN) Laboratory.
My work is at the nexus of urban metabolism, infrastructure planning and design, data science / artificial intelligence, complexity science, and future studies to redefine how infrastructure is planned, designed, built, and operated, championing principles of livability, sustainability, and resilience. See my Work page.
My publications include the textbook Urban Engineering for Sustainability (MIT Press, 2019). See my Writings page.
I hold editorial responsibilities with the journals Scientific Reports, the ASCE Journal of Infrastructure Systems, and Cleaner Production Letters.
As a consultant, I provide services to governments, non-profits, and industries in the world on smart cities, urban sustainability, infrastructure resilience, environmental justice, technology, and urban futures.
Make sure to visit the CSUN Lab's website that has information about the CSUN team along with a full list of publications, research projects, codes and tools, datasets, and information for prospective members, among many other things.
I enjoy walking around, observe infrastructure, and take pictures of it. Visit the gallery with past photos here.
In December 2022, I traveled to Lyon for the holidays. Lyon is famous for many things, including for organizing a contemporary art biennale. This year, the old Guimet Museum that has been closed since 2007 was reopened for the event. The old natural history pieces were substituted with contemporary artworks. I had never visited the museum before. I was amazed by the main hall featured in the photo here. It was stunning and much larger than I expected.
The artwork featured in the center was Ugo Schiavi’s 2022 Grafted Memory System. The light was dimmed and a music accompanied the artwork. The whole scene was breathtaking, one of the highlights of the biennale. To me, it showed how an old, failing piece of infrastructure could still have amazing charm. Unfortunately, I am told the museum is falling to pieces and may be destroyed in a few years. I am grateful I got to experience it..
As Einstein said "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."
We cannot rely on existing knowledge. It is time to reinvent how cities and infrastructure are planned, designed, built, and operated to make them more livable, sustainable, and resilient.